


A Continuation

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: Blake & Avery Series - M. J. Carter
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Caretaking, Domestic, Emotionally Repressed Englishmen, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Made For Each Other, No Spoilers, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 18:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15563628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: At the conclusion ofThe Devil's Feast, a murderer has been stopped, but there's another mystery Blake and Avery still need to solve.





	A Continuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



“Well,” I said. “What's it to be? America? The Marshalsea? Groveling to Collinson? Sleeping for a hundred hours?”

“Breakfast,” he said.

I had expected him to lead me to some obscure dining room for another exotic culinary adventure at the hands of an immigrant from somewhere I’d never heard of. I was sure he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of such establishments. But the cab he wearily bundled us into soon began to turn down increasingly familiar streets, and I was not surprised when it drew up in front of his lodgings. Blake’s oppressive landlady was nowhere in evidence as we ascended the creaking wooden staircase, for which I was grateful.

Blake unlocked the door and motioned me in with a tilt of his head. His rooms were as I remembered them from my last visit: cold, untended, and shabbily furnished, with books strewn across every available surface.

I set about heating water for coffee on the spirit stove as Blake lit a fire in the grate. I wondered if he meant to send to Mrs Jenkins for some of her delectable stew, indeed, I rather hoped he would. But he only took a few onions and a head of garlic from a string hung behind the door and began to chop them on a heavy wooden board, and their rank odor soon hung thick in the stale air. I made a show of opening a window. Blake ignored me. I returned my attention to the coffee.

Before long, I set a steaming mug beside him. He murmured something that might have been thanks and resumed his efforts. He had laid a wide, flat-bottomed skillet directly onto the grate. To its side, a second pot was already bubbling industriously with a thick, yellowish porridge I felt I should have been able to identify but could not. Blake began to fry the onions and garlic; they spat and hissed merrily in the melted butter. 

Presently, he stood and retrieved several little bottles from his spice cabinet, shaking a little of the contents of each directly into the pan. Immediately the choking odor of onion and garlic became the familiar scent of a Calcutta street vendor’s stall. I barely had time to marvel at the transformation before he upended the entire mixture into the dal curry—for I was now certain that was what it was that boiled in the pan. A jar of preserved tomatoes completed the ensemble.

He lifted it from the grate and laid it atop the table, already much singed with the potrings of meals past. Two dented tin plates thunked down beside it. “Well,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

I sat down and took a bite. “Why, this is not half bad!” I said. In truth, it was excellent. I had not tasted curry like this since I was last in India. 

All I earned for my praise was a shrug. “Been better with the right dal.”

“Well, I could not have told you the difference.” His brow drew low over his eyes, twisting the scar through the left into a new configuration. Nothing should have saved me from another of his brutal observations on the ignorance of Company men had I been able to keep the grin from my face. But I had not. A series of expressions flitted across his features in quick succession—surprise, irritation at having been taken in, however briefly; and finally, amusement.

“Shut up and eat your breakfast, Captain,” he said. I was happy to oblige.

For awhile the only sound was the fire’s crackle and the scrape of our spoons across our plates. The curry was gone faster than I would have liked. I felt I should have happily run my finger along the pot to catch the dregs there had I not feared Blake’s amusement at such a boyish gesture.

Without the meal to occupy us the silence, once companionable, soon grew oppressive, and I was no better at withstanding his taciturnity now than I had been when we first met. “Well,” I said at last, “What now?” 

He spared me one irritated glance. “We wait for Collinson to collect his due.”

“His due? You owe him nothing.”

“In the eyes of the powerful and influential, I owe him whatever he says I do. As you well know.”

"But there can be no shortage of people in this city whom you've aided out of tight spots. Surely some of them are well-placed and would be happy to do you a good turn in kind. Men you served under in the Company, for instance, or Lord Palmerston, after last night."

He dismissed it out of hand, as I had known he would. “No.”

“Then there is little time to waste. We must get you on a boat, or—or, if the funds cannot be readily arranged, at least on a train to somewhere else. Then we will be able to—“

He waved a hand, a curt, abrupt motion as if flicking away a fly. “I almost eluded him that way once, William. He will not permit it to happen a second time.”

He did not say that he would have eluded him successfully had it not been for me. “And if Collinson does not come? What then? Do you intend to sequester yourself here until you waste away in solitude?”

“He will come, William.”

“And if he does not,” I ground out.

“Yes,” he said, with all the weariness in the world plain in his voice. “I intend to remain here until I waste away in solitude.”

I set my jaw and glowered at him. It had no effect. I had not expected that it would.

He rose and went to stand by the window. I thought for a moment that Collinson's men were without, drawing close even now to drag him back to the Marshalsea. But then he withdrew a pipe and began to fill it with tobacco from a small pouch, and I saw my fears were for the moment premature.

The tremor in his hands was so slight it would have escaped my notice entirely. But just as he drew a breath, it grew to a shudder that left him doubled over and coughing, a hand braced against the wall for support.

I was on my feet instantly. He growled a warning at me as I approached, arms outstretched to steady him, but I would not be dissuaded. Eventually, he let me take him by the shoulders and guide him to the settee. Even there, he refused my entreaties to lie down, but slumped instead onto the threadbare cushion, head lolling against the wall.

I poured a glass of water from the pitcher and guided it to his mouth. He coughed again, though less violently this time. A fine spray of droplets clung to the stubble on his chin. He brushed my hand aside when I tried to wipe them away.

“I'm not a child, William. I don't need you fussing over me.”

“You are not a child,” I agreed, with all the patience I could muster, “but neither are you well. You need rest, and someone should call a doctor, or at the very least, Mrs Jenkins, and—”

“Go home, William. There's nothing more for you to do here.”

There were a thousand things I could have said to that, but what I said was, “Jeremiah, please. If you won’t take care of yourself—and it is clear that you will not, at least let someone—let _me_ take care of you.” I broke off, breathless and more than a little amazed at my own daring. 

He opened his mouth to protest. But what he said was, “All right.” I am not sure who, of the two of us, was more surprised by his acquiescence. He set his mouth and sat, hands hanging limply between his knees, and looked at me. For once it was not the hooded, hard stare, but an expression that looked almost quizzical, as though he had never before found himself in this position and simply did not know what to do next. 

What else was there for me to do? I sat beside him, gingerly, so that our legs were not quite touching, and took his hands in my own. They were cold, so I rubbed them for awhile until some measure of warmth returned to his chaffed and callused skin.

Something in him seemed to unwind slightly, to relax. “All will be well,” he said at last. I nodded.

All was not well. He was frail with fatigue and ill-use. I was as sure as he that Collinson would reappear shortly to make his displeasure with us both fully felt. My own wife and child waited for me in Devon. But for the first time in longer than I cared to admit, I felt I knew my way forward.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so ridiculously happy whenever this series is nominated for exchanges. There needs to be more fic! In the spirit of that, this is just a small little treat, but I hope you enjoy it all the same!


End file.
